


Us Without You

by The Little MerBucky (blue_pointer)



Series: While the Cap's Away [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Avengers Tower, Bucky with glasses, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Iron Soldier, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Pillow Talk, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sexy Tony Stark, Shower Sex, Steve mentioned, Switching, Tony is Pikachu, TonyXBucky - Freeform, Wanda mentioned, buckyxtony, conspiring against steve, culinary Vision, engineer bucky, history of stony, history of stucky, history of winterironshield, kick drum heart, stop acting like my mom, then stop acting so irresponsible, there is no substitute for good pastrami, winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:26:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9654797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_pointer/pseuds/The%20Little%20MerBucky
Summary: While Steve is off driving himself mad with jealousy and angst, Tony and Bucky are carrying on an adorable domestic routine that involves lots of sex, pillow talk, and working together in Tony's shop. They come up with a plan to get Steve back on track.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Needs moar winteriron.
> 
> The chronological order of fics in this universe is:
> 
> Technical Difficulties  
> Kick Drum Heart  
> No Hard Feelins  
> Part of This Complete Breakfast  
> The One I Hate  
> Boom Boom Pow  
> Tony Stark's On-Call Hotel Detective Agency  
> The Babysitter  
> The Wrong Foot  
>  **Us Without You**  
>  Balasana  
> Is It Like the Ocean?

“What are you thinking of, Buttercup?”

Bucky stretched luxuriously before rolling back over on Tony. “Steve.”

Tony started to look offended, but thought better of it. “He still hasn’t come to see you?”

“No.” Sullen wasn’t quite the word for Bucky’s tone. Melancholy, that was it.

“Aw, poor angel. You want me to kick him in the ass for you a little?”

Bucky sighed. “No. He’s not gonna do it if you tell him to.”

“True. The direct approach never works with our stubborn patriot boy. We could put a trail of granola leading to the studio. He likes that mix with the peanut butter, right?”

Bucky snorted. “Not that much.”

“Okay, but listen to this: what if we took a big box and we propped it up with a stick and under the box we put a lemon cream pie--you know how Cap loves those--and we tie a string to the stick, so when he goes in to get the pie, we yank the stick away and he’s caught inside the box.”

Bucky laughed. “Tony, that only works in Bugs Bunny.”

“What, really?” Tony acted surprised. “I could’ve sworn that’s how we got Ultron.”

“Tooonyyy.” Bucky shoved at him playfully, still cracking up.

“I love hearing you laugh, angel face.” He smirked, pleased with himself, using his fingers to brush Bucky’s hair back from his temple.

What Bucky loved was to see Tony smile. A smirk was good, too. Sexy. He leaned forward to plant one on Tony. “I love you. Mostly. Yup.” Bucky leaned back into the pillow.

“Now what’re we gonna do about Cap?”

“Put a pole in the studio?”

“What? No. I’ve been enjoying having my own private dancer.” Tony gripped Bucky’s hips and turned him around to spoon. “He doesn’t wanna come to your room, he doesn’t deserve your stripper routine.”

“I never take my clothes off when I use the pole, Tony.”

“You always do for me,” Tony murmured, tickling Bucky’s neck with his beard.

“Stop!” Bucky squirmed, trying to get away from him, but not that hard, because Tony’s arms were still around him. “That’s different! That’s afterwards.”

Tony chuckled, devilishly. “Not true. I’ve put my tongue inside you in the middle of some of those routines.”

Bucky huffed, frustrated. “That’s because you interrupt, not because it’s part of the dance.”

“Well, okay. So long as the dance with interruptions is still all mine.”

Bucky laughed. He couldn’t make any promises if Steve ever saw him dancing. “So...pole?” he asked, glancing back at Tony.

“Is that a request? Because I’m sure I could fulfill it given another…” He looked at his exquisite, expensive watch. “Thirty, forty-five minutes?”

“Tony!” But Bucky was smiling.

“Alright, alright. I’ll have one put in the studio. Happy?”

But Bucky didn’t reply right away. He’d thought of something. Tony had learned to recognize that neanderthal lost in a snowstorm expression as the one that meant his angel was thinking hard. “You know what would really work?” he asked softly.

“A different kind of lube? Because, you know, I’ve been experimenting with--”

“Tony.” Bucky was laughing.

“Okay, right. We’re moving on from sex. Got it. Go on, Buttercup.” He wasn’t sure why, but that nickname had to be accompanied by the cupping of Bucky’s tush. Always.

“Tony.”

“Whaaat, I’m listening.” Inasmuch as Tony could ever listen to anyone around the stream of higher mathematics going on in his head.

“When was the last time you saw Steve do art?”

Tony had to think about it. “Does doing a charcoal sketch of me in the nude, wearing a ridiculously large sapphire necklace count?”

Bucky snorted. “Yes.”

Tony had been hoping for a bigger laugh than that. Titanic was one of the few modern films his boys had actually enjoyed and could spot references from immediately. “Then...not since Ultron?”

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it, that is kind of...see, I need you around to notice these things, because I’m honestly bad at it.” Could you have an emotional sensitivity assistant? Because if so, Bucky was definitely his.

“Shhh.” Bucky turned in his arms to face Tony, stroking his hair, soothing. “Your genius brain just moves faster than normal human experience. You fly over our heads most of the time.”

“Flying head. Hmmm..”

“Tony!” Honestly, he could do this all day if it made Bucky smile like that. He wasn’t half so randy as he pretended, but it tickled Bucky every time.

“No, this is serious.” Tony schooled his expression, but put his hands back on Bucky’s behind. “So what’s the plan, Hannibal? How do we get him to art again?”

“Well…” Bucky chewed his lip. “He doesn’t have an art studio in the tower, right?”

“Well, actually, he was always weird about that. Never wanted me to build him one.”

“Sounds about right.” It wasn’t that Steve had ever turned down the gifts of art supplies Bucky had always bought him for his birthday and other special occasions--some he made up just to get Steve more art supplies he needed--but Steve had always had this odd idea that somehow it wasn’t really art if he didn’t buy the supplies himself. It was a byproduct of his stubborn need to be self-reliant at all times. Which was great if you had enough food to eat every day, but fell apart some when you were down to three potatoes a week and wearing your dead father’s clothes that were five sizes too big for you because you couldn’t afford even thrift stores and you refused to take handouts from church.

“Honest, I never could figure that one out.” What kind of crazy person turned down gifts? Apparently men born closer to the turn of the century, because Steve wasn’t the only one...

“Yeah, but you know Steve.”

“I do, but you know more about why he’s a stubborn idiot, while I just get to deal with the aftermath and finding new ways to trick him into doing what I want.”

“You’re really good at it, though.” He loved when Bucky’s eyes sparkled when he looked at him.

“What, making him do what I want? Are you kidding?” Steve was a difficult person to manipulate unless what you wanted was anger. That was an easy response to get out of Cap.

“I mean just in general, making people do what you want.”

“Well, duh. You can’t run a multi-billion dollar business without knowing how to get people to do what you want. But most people are easy.”

“Oh really?” Bucky made as if to pull away.

“Take you, for example.” Tony reeled him back in.

“Take me?”

“Sugarplum, I thought you’d never ask.” He snaked forward to make comical growling sounds while tickling Bucky’s neck with his moustache.

“Stop it! My stomach hurts from laughing!”

“Never!” More snuffling and growling noises, followed by a sweet kiss to Bucky’s throat. Bucky was shoving him away with one hand planted on Tony’s forehead. But he wasn’t trying very hard, because Tony’s arms were still around him.

“Who are you, Groucho Marx?”

“You know, I take that as a compliment.” Geniuses could respect other geniuses, after all.

Bucky flicked his nose, playfully. “I know you only learned to do those impressions cause you know me and Steve will get them.”

“A comical conspiracy? Slander! How dare you drag my good name, sir.”

“Drag it through what?” Bucky’s brow furrowed.

“Just drag it.”

“I don’t get it.” The poor lamb.

“Oh, sweetheart. I need to get you to watch more Logo.”

“Huh? The gay channel? Do they have good documentaries like PBS?”

“Weeeeellll… Just trust me. You could learn some useful things from watching it more.” And it was never bad to have the primary source of drama in the Tower coming from the television.

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Since when had Tony become the gay history teacher of Avengers’ Tower?

Bucky’s hands stroked up and down his flanks, in a way that seemed like the topic was about to change. “Hey. Hey.”

“Yeeeees?” Tony looked up at Bucky through his eyelashes, which meant he already knew what he was about to say.

Bucky tilted his head to tease at Tony’s lips. “Let’s go again?”

“Haven’t you taken advantage of me enough today?”

Bucky answered without hesitation. “No.”

“I do have actual things to get done, you know.” Bucky’s metal hand rested in the small of his back, unmoving. He knew how that drove Tony up the wall, just the idea of it lurking so close. The potential.

“Oh yeah?” Buck proved he wasn’t listening by leaning down to leave a trail of sucking kisses across Tony’s shoulder.

“Have I ever told you you’re the worst administrative assistant I’ve ever had?”

“Actually, you said I was the best when I had you over the desk in your office last Friday.”

“I’ll have you know that paperweight was a gift from the Prince of Monaco, and it can’t be replaced!”

“You’re the one who threw half that stuff on the floor. I can’t help it if I was eatin’ your ass at the time.”

“Okay, but I’m saying you’re...you know, mildly good at it, and thus to blame for things I break when you ambush me like you did.” Tony liked to see how long he could continue to speak in coherent sentences while Bucky’s lips were on him.

Bucky’s metal fingers traced the curve of Tony’s ass, teasingly. “Shush. You loved it.”

“Okay, I might have said that at the time, but I was under duress.”

“Mmmhmm.” Bucky started to suck another hickey on his neck, his right hand slipping between them to cup Tony’s jewels.

“I honestly...I never said I loved it when I was in my right mind...I mean.. _.oh god_.” This last was gasped as metal fingers began to tease his rim. “You’re an incubus, admit it. Put here on this earth to prevent me from ever getting out of this bed.”

At that, Bucky looked up. “Well, it’s so damn hard to GET you in the bed to begin with, Mr. Insomnia, YES. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you here.”

“You’re just addicted to my sweet behind. Admit it.”

“Fuck yeah, I am,” Bucky panted, gripping said piece of anatomy to mold their bodies together. It was hard not to give in to the look of pure lust on his face.

“Well…” Tony pretended to think about it. “Maybe just a little piece of ass wouldn’t hurt.”

Bucky nuzzled him. “You don’t want me to hurt you this time?”

Tony scoffed. “Well now you’re just being ridiculous.”

Bucky chuckled. Then he moved in to give Tony a good snogging. “Mmm, baby…”

There was not a lot of plotting between them for some time.

*

They were in the shower, washing up, when the topic finally shifted back to Steve. “So I’m thinking there might be a way to trick Steve into coming to the studio AND doing art again…” Tony was turned to the wall, standing spread-eagle so Bucky could rinse him out and wash his thighs.

“Is that really what you’re thinking about when my wet, naked derriere is in your face? Because at the very least, my feelings are hurt.”

Bucky gave it a slap. “Don’t start again if you ever wanna get to the workroom today.”

Tony wiggled it playfully. “Okay, fine. Your loss.” The amount of time it took Bucky to decide he was NOT going to push Tony up against the tile wall was very satisfying to Tony’s ego.

“So anyway, about the OTHER brat child I have sex with, I’m gonna draw up like an informal design plan today while you’re working, okay?”

“I am not a brat!” Tony insisted, turning around to stick his tongue out at Bucky, who just slapped his other ass-cheek.

“Can you look it over and help me with it?”

“Don’t I always?” Tony smirked. But honestly, he was proud of his little cyborg angel for trying his hand at design more and more. He’d get him to build something from scratch any day now.

“Fuck you.” His superior tone of voice didn’t seem to have gone over well with Bucky, who gave him the finger in a very literal sense. Tony tried not to jump in surprise, but this one was good at keeping him on his toes. Both literally and figuratively.

“Whaaat?” Tony whined. “I said I would help.”

Bucky took his ridged metal finger back, but not before biting Tony’s ass. “Be nice, teacher. Or I’ll quit physics class and never graduate.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” It must have been the finger. Tony turned around to slide his arms around Bucky’s neck, snuggling close. The bedroom eyes were happening.

“Tony. I told you--”

“Shut up and kiss me,” he demanded, pulling Bucky down with a hand on the back of his head.

“You know, you’re pretty horny for a guy your age,” Bucky grinned.

“Okay, that’s it. On the floor now. You get teabagged for that. And I’m not sucking your dick, either.”

“Are you sure?” Bucky teased, lying down on the shower floor, which had been modified to be easy on knees and backs after the tenth time they’d realized showering together was dangerous. He twitched his already-engorged member, mocking Tony with his refractory period.

“I hate you,” Tony said, earnestly, kneeling down over his face.

“You sure about that?” Bucky asked, giving his sack a good licking before diving face-first into Tony’s ass.

“Ohhh, _yeah_.” The moaning was probably a little counter to the point he was trying to make.

*

They did finally make it to the workshop, Tony walking a little funny, and Bucky with a spring in his step. While Tony built and repaired, Bucky made a tentative blueprint--he liked to draft by hand, the old fashioned way. Both of his boys were offended by AutoCAD and other such design-it-quick programs, though Tony was convinced Steve would not be able to put down a drawing tablet if he could just get him to use one once.

It was cute to watch either of them use a computer. They both transformed into senior citizens trying to puzzle out this new-fangled adding machine. Where Steve was often lost, Bucky could figure out how to do what he needed to do more quickly, but he had a very dramatic way of working on a computer.

Take now, for example. He’d borrowed a pair of Tony’s reading glasses (again), and had them perched on the end of his nose as he placed a large order from Utrecht, constantly glancing back and forth from the computer to a handwritten list he’d made to a print-out of blanket purchase orders he’d had Pepper email over days ago. It was a little like watching someone’s grandfather trying to do his taxes by hand.

“Sweetheart,” Tony called over from half-underneath a turbine, “You know it doesn’t matter about the GLs. That’s for the accounting department to worry about after we buy the things. I pay them to worry about it so that you and I don’t have to.”

“No, Tony, I wanna do it right,” Bucky insisted, toggling back and forth from the browser to an Excel document he’d been laboring over for the better part of two months now. “Wait. No! Where’d all my cells go?!” He slammed his fist on the workbench, cracking the wood. “Fuck you, Microsoft!”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Tony agreed, going back to his rewiring. “Serious, though, sweet cheeks, maybe it’s time for a lunch break.”

Bucky glanced up, looking startled. It was the most adorable expression with the addition of reading glasses. “Mr. Workaholic is telling ME to take a lunch break?”

“Well, how’m I ever gonna get my pastrami sandwich with stone-ground mustard if you don’t take a break long enough to make it and bring it down to me?” Tony smirked, distracted just long enough to shock himself on the bare wires. “Ouch!” He sucked his finger.

“That’s what you get,” Bucky smirked back, crossing his arms over his chest, looking vindicated. For about two seconds, before he came running over to make sure Tony was okay.

“I’m fine, mom,” Tony rolled his eyes, but let Bucky examine his fingertips and press them to his lips in spite of the smudges of grease and engine dirt all over them. “Now go make me a sandwich.”

Bucky did let go and start to leave, but not without giving Tony another hard smack on the ass. “You are a spoiled midget, you know that?”

“I’m not short!” Tony called back, defensively. “You’re just ridiculously tall.”

“Uh-huh. And so is Wanda, and Nat, and Rocket the Raccoon…” The wrench missed Bucky, but only by a carefully-calculated inch. If there was one thing Tony Stark could throw (besides shade), it was a wrench.

The weird thing about cooking or prepping anything in the Tower kitchen closest to the common area was that Vision tended to hover (sometimes literally) over everything you were doing, like some culinary bogeyman. “I’m just making Tony a sandwich, man,” Bucky said for the third time, hoping against hope that this was the time the AI would get a clue and float back to the common area to play chess with F.R.I.D.A.Y.

“Now may I inquire,” Vision was asking, in a way that completely ignored the point Bucky was trying to make--and wasn’t he programmed to get social cues?-- “as to why you’ve chosen one lemon cucumber pickle but three spears of kosher dill pickles?”

Bucky shrugged. “Because I like the round ones, but Tony doesn’t always? And it makes the arrangement look more...balanced?” Was he really talking about pickle arrangement with this guy?

“So this arrangement, as you call it, is for visual appeal more than taste preference?”

“Yeah, maybe. I mostly just go on instinct.”

That seemed to deflate Vision some. His toes were closer to the ground than they’d been in a few minutes, anyway. “How I envy you.”

“Hey, don’t worry, pal.” Bucky patted him on the shoulder, managing to get mustard on his cape. Whoops. “You’ll get the hang of it eventually. I mean, the more you cook--”

Suddenly Vision looked like one of those Precious Moments children. Damn, the 80s had been creepy. “But Sir said I wasn’t to cook for everyone ever again after the Spaghetti Incident.”

“Okay, so maybe cooking every day is a little much.” Especially if he expected human beings to EAT what he’d cooked. “But you can still practice, like, with Wanda when she comes over, right?”

Vision’s eyes became reverent. “Wanda…”

Bucky tried to hide a smile. “Hey, when’s she comin’ over again, anyway?”

“She should be returning from her meeting with Professor Xavier around 1800 hours.”

Bucky looked up from making little hearts in Tony’s extra dish of mustard. “Wait, what? She’s already in town?”

“I put it on the shared agenda,” Vision said, accusatorily.

Bucky made a face. “I hate Outlook.”

“It was also in the Chrome calendar, programmed with an alarm in everyone’s Fitbit, and on the Starkmad app.” His expression said that Bucky had no excuse, and he supposed he really didn’t.

“Oh. Well...sorry.”

“That’s quite alright, Mr. Barnes, I believe you were engaged in sexual intercourse with Sir for the first several hours of her visit, after which she’d kindly agreed to go for a carriage ride with me through Central Park.”

Bucky was about to go off on Vision for actually tracking the time he spent fucking Tony, but he switched gears when Vision mentioned their date. “A carriage ride through the park, whoa! You’re really pullin’ out all the stops on this romance thing, huh?”

Vision looked a little embarrassed, but honestly it was hard to tell with his colouring. “Yes, well. My analysis of romantic western film media did indicate that such an activity might be pleasing to a potential love interest.”

Bucky tried to be encouraging. He really did. But it was hard when he’d say Mr. Computer stuff like this. “Wow, that’s. Really mathematical. Maybe you should try to be more spontaneous now and then.”

“I did reveal the plan at just the right moment,” Vision told him. “It was intended to appear as a spontaneous surprise. Do you think I failed?”

Bucky refused to get roped into an afternoon of giving relationship advice to someone Tony had programmed. “You know who you should really ask about all this stuff? Your dad. Dads are great for giving advice.”

Vision gave him a quizzical look. “Ah, I see. You’re inferring that Sir is my father, as he’s the one who wrote my original program. I apologize, was that meant to be a joke?”

Bucky sighed, picking up the tray of food. “I guess not.”

“I could attempt laughter,” Vision offered.

“Please don’t!” Bucky said hurriedly. Watching Vision attempt to laugh--even smile--was one of the most terrifying things Bucky had ever seen. And that included his decades as a Hydra agent. “I mean--I’ll catch up with you later, huh? Your dad’s pastrami is getting cold.”

“Very well. Will you be joining us for game night later?”

Bucky’s face twitched. “Probably not.” It wasn’t that he didn’t like Vision or Clint or Wanda or whoever else chose to show up. He just had trouble with social situations that involved more than two other people. Sam said they were working on it, which Bucky took as permission to make himself scarce from such events. The good thing about Vision failing at social interaction was, you didn’t always have to say goodbye to him when you left a room.

Bucky stuck his head in the workroom door. “Are you gonna throw anything else at me?”

“Get in here, I’m starving.”

“Finally.” It took Bucky a minute to locate the source of Tony’s voice, as he’d popped his head out of one of the ducts in the ceiling.

“Well excuse me, someone had me sweating to the oldies all morning.” He tossed down a rope ladder that made Bucky very nervous for Tony’s safety.

“Hah hah, very funny.”

“I have to replenish my energy,” Tony smirked, starting to back down the flimsy-looking ladder.

“Hey, I made sure you were good and full before we came down here.” Putting the tray on a nearby bench was a good reason to position himself under Tony in case he fell the last 20 feet, right?

But Tony made it safely, rolled his eyes, and grabbed half his sandwich, one-handed. “Semen is not a healthy breakfast,” he said.

“That’s what I keep tellin’ you.” Bucky shook his head sadly, as if he had actually argued against this with Tony more than a few times.

Tony took one look at the tray and asked, shrewdly, “Hey, where’s your food?”

Bucky shrugged. “I figured I’d grab something on the way to the studio.”

“Promise?” Tony nudged him. If it was Bucky’s job to make sure Tony ate, Tony had to reciprocate at least a little. Especially at times like now, when his buttercup was so down about this dumb fight he was having with captain stubborn.

Bucky nodded, resting his arms loosely around Tony’s waist and kissing him gently on the lips. “Mmm. Kosher.”

Tony smirked, giving him a gentle shove. “Go on, now. Get out of here, before you seduce me all over again and this whole day goes straight to hell.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Right, because I’M the seducer here.”

Tony kissed his jaw. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Now go on.” He stepped away before things could go downhill. “When will I see you later?” Bucky pointed to the laptop, still on, waiting for him to complete his work for an answer. “Alright. I promise not to close out of any of your programs again.”

“Thank you for humoring an old man,” Bucky said, blowing him a kiss as he turned to go. “And I expect that pole to be installed by tomorrow.”

“Jeez, you really know how to crack the whip,” Tony murmured, amused.

“Don’t give me any ideas.” Bucky winked and disappeared out the door.

Tony wasn’t sure when exactly he’d married Bucky Barnes, but he found he kind of enjoyed the routine they’d fallen into. Now if only there was a way to get Cap back into the picture without ruining everything they had going.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Us Without You [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13521714) by [litrapod (litra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litrapod)




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